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Getting Started

Simple Setup​

The recommended method to install CapRover is via DigitalOcean one-click app. CapRover is available as a One-Click app in DigitalOcean marketplace.

Note that if you are a new DigitalOcean user, you will receive $100 Free Credit once you sign up for the first two months. This is enough for two months of multiple servers!

If you use this method, you can skip Prerequisites section and step 1 of CapRover Setup below!


CreateDroplet

Prerequisites​

A) Domain Name​

During installation, you'll be asked to point a wildcard DNS entry to your CapRover IP Address. This will cost you as low as $2 a year (or even less!)

Note that you can use CapRover without a domain too. But you won't be able to setup HTTPS.

B) Server​

B1) Public IP​

Side note: You can install CapRover locally on your laptop on a private network which is behind NAT (your router). But if you want to enable HTTPS and/or access the apps from outside of your private network, it requires some special setup, like port forwarding.

In standard installation, CapRover has to be installed on a machine with a public IP address. If you need help with Public IP, see Server & Public IP address. This will cost you as low as $5 a month. If you use the DigitalOcean referral code, you'll get $100 credit - two months worth of free server: https://m.do.co/c/6410aa23d3f3

B2) Server Specs​

CPU Architecture: Published CapRover images target AMD64 (x86-64) and ARM64. The 32-bit ARMv7 image is no longer published.

Recommended Stack: CapRover is tested on Ubuntu 24.04 and Docker 25+. If you're using CapRover on a different OS, you might want to look at Docker Docs.

Minimum RAM: Note that the build process sometimes consumes too much RAM, and 512MB RAM might not be enough (see this issue). Most providers offer a minimum of 1GB RAM on $5 instance including DigitalOcean, Vultr, Scaleway, Linode, SSD Nodes and etc.

B3) Docker​

Your server must have Docker installed on it. If you get your server from DigitalOcean, you can select a server with CapRover one-click app and everything will be installed for you automatically. Otherwise, you can install Docker CE by following this instruction. Note that your Docker version needs to be, at least, version 25.x+.

AVOID snap installation snap installation of Docker is buggy. Use the official installation instructions for Docker.

B4) Configure Firewall​

Some server providers have strict firewall settings. For a single-node Ubuntu server, allow the public CapRover ports:

ufw allow 80/tcp
ufw allow 443/tcp
ufw allow 443/udp
ufw allow 3000/tcp

See firewall settings for multi-node Swarm ports and registry access.



CapRover Setup

Step 1: CapRover Installation​

Just run the following line, sit back and enjoy!

docker run -p 80:80 -p 443:443 -p 3000:3000 -e ACCEPTED_TERMS=true -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock -v /captain:/captain caprover/caprover

The command above uses the recommended default ports. Advanced installations can change the published ports by setting CAPTAIN_HOST_HTTP_PORT, CAPTAIN_HOST_HTTPS_PORT, and CAPTAIN_HOST_ADMIN_PORT to match the host side of each -p mapping. Keep the container ports at 80, 443, and 3000.

You will see a bunch of outputs on your screen. Once the CapRover is initialized, you can visit http://[IP_OF_YOUR_SERVER]:3000 in your browser and login to CapRover using the default password captain42. You can change your password later. However, do not make any changes in the dashboard. We'll use the command line tool to setup the server (recommended).

Step 2: Connect Root Domain​

Let's say you own mydomain.com. You can set *.something.mydomain.com as an A-record in your DNS settings to point to the IP address of the server where you installed CapRover. Note that it can take several hours for this change to take into effect. It will show up like this in your DNS configs:

  • TYPE: A record
  • HOST: *.something
  • POINTS TO: (IP Address of your server)
  • TTL: (doesn't really matter)

To confirm, go to https://mxtoolbox.com/DNSLookup.aspx and enter randomthing123.something.mydomain.com and check if IP address resolves to the IP you set in your DNS. Note that randomthing123 is needed because you set a wildcard entry in your DNS by setting *.something as your host, not something.

NOTE: CapRover requires A Record to be pointing to CapRover's IP Address. If you use proxy services, such as Cloudflare, you may face difficulties. CapRover does not officially support such use cases.

Step 3: Configure and initialize CapRover​

Assuming you have npm installed on your local machine (e.g., your laptop), simply run (add sudo if needed):

 npm install -g caprover

Then, run

 caprover serversetup

Follow the steps and login to your CapRover instance. When prompted to enter the root domain, enter something.mydomain.com assuming that you set *.something.mydomain.com to point to your IP address in step #2. Now you can access your CapRover from captain.something.mydomain.com. You can read more about hiding the root domain here.

NOTE: It will not be possible to carry through with the caprover serversetup if you've already forced https on your CapRover instance. In such case go straight to logging in with the caprover login command. To change the password go to the settings menu in the app.

With the web interface (doesn't require npm)​

  1. Login to http://[IP_OF_YOUR_SERVER]:3000
  2. Configure the root domain
  3. Enable HTTPS, then force it
  4. Once you are connected through HTTPS, change the default password (captain42)

Step 4: (Optional) Set up Swap file​

In some cases you may run into problems due to not having enough physical RAM. For example, when building a Docker image, if it starts to take up too much memory, the build will fail. To work around these problems (without purchasing more RAM) you can set up a Swap file (which is used as virtual RAM), by following these instructions on How To Create A Linux Swap File.

Step 5: Deploy the Test App​

Go to the CapRover in your browser, from the left menu select Apps and create a new app. Name it my-first-app. Then, download any of the test apps here, unzip the content. and while inside the directory of the test app, run:

/home/Desktop/captain-examples/captain-node$  caprover deploy

Follow the instructions, enter my-first-app when asked for app name. First time build takes about two minutes. After build is completed, visit my-first-app.something.mydomain.com where something.mydomain.com is your root domain. CONGRATS! Your app is live!!

You can connect multiple custom domains (like www.my-app.com) to a single app and enable HTTPS and do much more in the app's settings page.

Note that when you run caprover deploy, the current git commit will be sent over to your server.

IMPORTANT: Uncommitted files and files in gitignore WILL NOT be sent to the server.

You can visit CapRover in the browser and set custom parameters for your app such as environment variables, and do much more! For more details regarding deployment, please see CLI docs. For details on captain-definition file, see Captain Definition File.